Yousaf S

You can wear it to work, you can trudge through snow, you can breeze through airport security, you can dress down for a weekend hike. The Swiss army knife of boots

The original autonomous vehicle

By industry you can only get it via special run ($) at small geographies, but you can access place of employment in the commute to work line in the public census for aggregate job counts. Though if you work at a university (or are a student) you should have access to all the census datasets

“The old order has ended, a new age has begun, and here is why municipal waste collection stands at the forefront of a new dawn”

Primary event study from Bressler and Cui (2025). The effect of the "701" Planning Assistance Program is a 13% reduction in new housing supply per decade .

Why are many U.S. cities building less? Why have they insisted on a "thicket" of regulations that make housing hard to build?

In a new #EconJMP with Beau Bressler (beaubressler.github.io), we study how much of the answer lies with a forgotten federal program that taught cities to restrict growth

The branding writes itself: We CANDU it!

So not a glass of water into a swimming pool; an empty glass thrown into a swimming pool?

Depending where, they’re either a duplex or semi detached. They’re all over Canada (i live in one, my hood in Calgary is predominantly these now).

So the thing about smart cars/evs is that speed governors are easier to implement? U of I campus had an agreement with the local bike share company and the minute you crossed into campus grounds your scooter would rev down to Campus limit. Not sure about broader politics though

Got a Seagull Rodina a few years back (can’t remember what watch it was an “homage“*cough knockoff* of) and qualitywise it’s really nice and has held up.

Petition to rename the Gardiner East “Tory’s Revenge”. That’ll give him a legacy.

Reviewing the platforms for my local councillors for the election here in Calgary and definitely noticing that “community character” in their housing platform is an immediate trigger.

Murray really doesn’t understand the policies is my read of him over the years. For one thing, he thinks official plan permissions are upzoning, when that’s not at all the case across the anglosphere.

PM: I need you to whip up a rendering for this project.

Finance co-op: wat?

PM: I thought you kids could do anything with AI.

We used to get excited outbursts from hospital staff “oh you have GREAT insurance” and still had to fight the insurance company for stuff that would be routine in Canada. Like, yes we have our own problems, but I’d rather wait 10 months for an appt than spend 10 months fighting insurance

lots of speculation about the obamas getting divorced but the thing you have to understand is that we need affordable housing

Oh goodness where to start; uniform facade, no ziggurat, very likely doesn’t fit with the character of the single detached neighbourhood 50km away…

Meanwhile, over in Calgary where the city is permitting multiplexes and duplexes galore in our inner city hood, our local elementary school that was bussing students in has had to switch to local only, transferring to overflow schools, and a lottery system for future enrollment

Oddly enough this is reasonably affordable and doable in so many quaint little college towns, but our cities, for all the studies they like to publish on this, can’t seem to do it without pricing everyone out

Are work permit holders a lagging indicator of people who came on study permits between 2016-2020 and got their work permits post graduation?

My constant reminder to everyone complaining about Marda Loop and all the traffic that density will bring

There’s a rogue AI advising them 🙃

Early stage cash grab in an attempt to become a virtual monopoly with obscene amounts of money to then invest and be (somewhat independent) of federal funding (too many strings). Guessing the silence now is also temporary because Trump is vindictive and mercurial, and they want to avoid his wrath

We will “being to colonize the galaxy” before the City of Toronto actually implements zoning changes does sound accurate though.

I think in BC it’s now up to 6 storeys wood frame; but they’re trying to push that higher with reg improvements and mass timber (promising, but still working on making that pencil)

Because new growth can’t vote until the money has already been spent. Old growth keeps their property taxes low.

No but I’d love to do a marginal cost analysis of the “benefit to existing” from increased level of service due to improved infrastructure. The weird presumption that somehow existing residents are fine with failing infrastructure and wouldn’t otherwise benefit is a bizarre one

You just have to look at the tables in the DC background reports to see, and in the case of TO, it’s overwhelmingly affordable housing, Scarb Subway, and the Gardiner that’s the bulk of the DC funded capital program.

1924 house with a cheap dishwasher. Went kaput, “oh good, now I can get a decent washer.” Buy decent washer, schedule install. Day of deliver guys arrive, try to take it out, no dice. The previous owner had tiled over the feet of the old dishwasher, locking it to the floor.

Lived in a house from 1924. Beautiful, charming af, but never again.